For the last 29 years, the NBA has conducted its postseason with a strange twist. In the conference rounds, the league has split the seven-game series into a 2-2-1-1-1 home-road format, and only in the NBA Finals has the postseason gone to a 2-3-2 setup.

That made sense when the move was made in 1985, when travel between, say, Boston and Los Angeles was difficult, and newspaper writers had to transmit stories under tight deadlines.

Much has changed, though. And by a unanimous vote, the league’s Board of Governors on Wednesday changed its Finals format back to 2-2-1-1-1.

“The Competition Committee felt strongly that a consistent format should be used for each round of our playoffs,” Rod Thorn, president of the league’s Basketball Operations, said. “With improvements in team air travel and technology, the reasons the 2-3-2 format made sense for us in the past largely do not exist anymore, so creating consistency became the priority.”

The league has frowned on any notion that the 2-3-2 format has had an effect on which team wins the championship, and ultimately, there is some truth to that. Certainly, any series that was over within five games would not have been affected by the homecourt format, but that accounts for only 11 Finals played since ’85. In the 18 Finals that went at least six games under the 2-3-2 format, the team with the homecourt advantage went 13-5.

While the homecourt is going to give any team an edge, it seems especially disadvantageous to the road team in the 2-3-2 format. That’s because it is difficult for the team playing three consecutive games at home to win all three—teams in the Final are, obviously, among the league’s elite and it is hard to beat any team in the same setting three straight times. In the 18 Finals that reached Game 6, only one team managed to win all three games at home, the ’06 Heat.

As the numbers below show, in series that go at least six games, teams playing the three middle games at home are at a distinct disadvantage:

NBA Finals, home team’s record

• Games 1 and 2: 25-11 (.694)

• Games 3, 4 and 5: 34-20 (.629)

• Games 6 and 7: 17-6 (.739)

What makes things especially difficult for the team without the homecourt advantage is the task of playing three games at home, then needing to go on the road and gather up enough momentum to win in a hostile building. It is tough to maintain rhythm that way.

Last year, for example, the Spurs were in San Antonio for a solid week before returning to Miami for Game 6 with a 3-2 series lead. The Spurs wound up fumbling away the sixth game late in the fourth quarter before losing in overtime, then lost Game 7, too.

That was a repeat of what happened to Boston in 2010, when the Celtics went back to play the Lakers with a 3-2 lead, but hit a wall in the final two games, scoring 67 points in Game 6 and 79 points in Game 7. Those were easily the worst offensive games that Boston had in that postseason—the Celtics had averaged 95.8 points in the playoffs prior to that.

Two other teams—the Knicks in 1994 and the Pistons in 1988—were in similar situations, coming out of Game 5 with a 3-2 lead and heading on the road for the final two games. Each suffered the same fate as Boston and San Antonio, losing in heartbreaking Game 6s.

The Knicks’ loss came on a last-second block by the Rockets’ Akeem Olajuwon (before he became Hakeem) on a shot by John Starks, and the Pistons’ one-point loss came despite a heroic 43-point performance from Isiah Thomas, who played through an injured ankle.

In all four cases, the team with a 3-2 lead going on the road lost in Game 6 and went on to lose the championship in seven games.

It can never be said for sure, of course, whether a 2-2-1-1-1 would have made any difference for teams like the Spurs, Celtics, Knicks or Pistons. But it has no doubt been an uphill climb for teams in that situation. The new layout should ease that climb, at least a little.